Its more than four years that I have been involved in Rural ICT in Nepal. In these years there were so many changes and development in the field of ICTs .The bitter fact is that these changes and development has only a direct affect on the rich and Technology literate people of Urban Areas. However these changes has obviously has an impact on the rural Areas as well. However the Villagers are accepting the new things without the actual awareness of these innovation. This is where the term digital divide best suits. As for the illiterate these new technologies are just like magic shows where they just wonder these things could also happen!
I used to question myself why this is happening to the villages of Nepal. Just to take an example, In 2006 we set up computers in the Community Information Center (CIC) Mayatari, Syangja. Indeed it was a great challenge for us to manage the Computers, Printers and other equipments. My Friend Cameroon Brooks From Australia who volunteered in CIC for more than month and I was surprised not to see the invited people of that place. To our astonishment we knew that the reason that they didn't came was because they thought they would transfer the virus to the computers if they touch or get near to it. First of all we were very sad that most of them didnt came there. Afterwards, Were happy that they were totally convinced with the fact that Computer virus and the organic virus are two different things.CIC, Mayatari was a community initiative to transform the village. Its already been three years of the establishment. This CIC is runs Computer Classes, Language classes. Also there is a CDMA telephone, Internet where the local people use for various purposes. We first started the CIC, Mayatari with only newspapers, Magazines, Notice board and books donated by the community people.The problem was that the newspaper reached late only in the evening. However the situation is not the same as before with accessibilty of internet people browse the internet for daly news early in the morning. What they do is they print the newspaper in the printer and paste for all of others as well.
Recently people are trying to sell their product through internet. Syangja District is considered as "the Orange and Coffee Land". NRIDS in association with the local Agriculture organization is currently working on having a E-commerce web site for Farmers. It made me very happy that the people way of looking things has changed drastically.Instead of writing mail to the nearones outside through post office. People feels easy to send emails to them. Those who are illiterate takes the assistance of someone other to convey message to their near ones. To get back to four years back when I shared this idea to Mr. Bhakta Bahadur Adhikari ,Mr. Bodh Raj Aryal, Mr.Lekhnath Aryal: They were just listening to me as if I was telling the stories of Aliens. These people are the social activist of Syangja District. They are also educated, so I chose to work with them. They were very supportive to the idea of CIC but were totally ignorant about ICT. You these days all of them use internet,Mobile,CDMA phone for communication. They are now awaring other vilages in Syangja for the trasformation through ICT - by establishing CICs.
Similarly with the exeperience of CIC in Mayatari. NRIDS team has been conducting various ICT awareness campaign in rural areas of Nepal. Till now there are 10 CICs established in three districts namely Syangja,Kaski,and Dang District. All of these CICs were establsihed by the concerned community with the concept of "By the Community For the community and With the Community". From furnitures to Newspapers room for the CIC and other materials that are needed for CIC are contibuted voluntarily from the community themselves. I will share the exciting experinces establishing CICs in other parts -rural Nepal soon. However all the concerned should keep in their mind that ICT revolution is only possible through the concept of "By the Community For the Community and With the Community".Involving Community in every action the Government or anyother bodies working for Development is must.